


The Choice

by Han502653



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon to forth novel, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, forth novel spoilors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23708413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Han502653/pseuds/Han502653
Summary: One moment she is breathing, and the next she isn't.His world falls apart and he has no idea why.Or: Zeetha dies at Mamma's and two generals have a decision to make.
Relationships: Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs & Mamma Gkika, Axel "The Unstoppable" Higgs/Zeetha Daughter of Chump
Comments: 23
Kudos: 46





	The Choice

He stared down at the unbreathing form on the bed before him, a cold numbness spilling from his chest to his limbs. The pipe he had been smoking nervously fell from his fingers with a plop. They had only turned away for a second, but in that second…

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and despite wanting to he couldn’t pull his gaze from the still, but distressed, face.

“Hy’m sorry.” Mamma said quietly, tiredly. “Hy did my best, but… ze vas in a very bad vay. Hy pumped her vith Battledraught first ting, bot maybes Hy giff her too moch, und… ze lost lots of blood… Hy kan’t giffs her Jäger blood, it vould reject instantly, zo Hy had to haff sumvun sneaks to de hospitals for sum of dat o-blood stuff since Hy don’t know her type. It took to long.”

Dammit. Dammit it all. He should have taken her to the Hospital. He should have taken up the Wulfanbach kid’s offer of a note for Sun. It would have been dangerous, but dammit he would have fought to stay by her side, and while a prisoner she would have been alive! Sun would have made assure of that!

Dammit! He wasn’t a doctor. He knew basic first aid but he was no doctor. He knew that what Mamma would do would be likely risky to keep her going, Battledraught would always be a risk on a non-Jäger, but he hadn’t even considered the idea she wouldn’t have non-Jäger blood on hand. Of course, he should of. Dammit, so stupid!

And maybe she could have saved her. Maybe she would have had time to sneak blood back if he had just rushed her out of the Castle instead of walking out like she wasn’t dying in his arms. If he hadn’t bothered to humor the Castle. Hadn’t bothered to grump at the Storm King. If he had run back to her faster. Dammit, he had basically killed her himself, hadn’t he.

Or maybe they should have just stayed there—let the Sparks hook her up on life support… bring her back if she died. They could have done it. If anyone could have it would have been them.

Maybe… maybe if they put her on ice… maybe once this was done they could…?

Claws gently scratched at his chin, and carefully they forced him to turn his head from his pained stare and into Mamma’s concerned eyes. Higgs wasn’t really seeing her. He wasn’t really seeing how she stared at his expression, at the dead look in his eyes, and the emotions that were playing on the face he usually kept so neutral.

He couldn’t see the gears turning in her head. The careful consideration she was taking.

“Atanase…”

Higgs jumped slightly at the name he hadn’t been called for so long. He blinked owlishly and realized his eyes felt… wet…

Was he… was he about to cry…

“Hel…”

“Ze vas loyal, to de Lady?” Mamma asked lowly, softly, as if she already knew the answer but needed to hear it again.

He blinked again. His eyes itched… was this tears… was he near tears? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been near tears… it was distracting.

“Jah,” he said quietly. “Ze d-died protectink her.” He closed his eyes as he admitted the truth. She was gone.

The complete failure to hide his accent convinced Mamma even more. “Hy dought zo, from how ze vas vith me. Ze talked vith soch pride uf her. Uf pride und luff. Like a Mamma almost. Vas trainkink her to survive und fight.”

He nodded slowly, aimlessly. He vaguely remembered the Lady picking up her sword like she knew what she was doing—not well, not really, but that she had some idea. It made sense; from his understanding there wouldn’t have been much time to learn.

“It probably saffed De Lady’s life,” he said, the heaviness around his eyes only felt worse.

Mamma hummed as he spiraled.

“Und de Lady, ze vould stop at nothink to saff her?”

A low anger, buried by the numbness but there nonetheless, burned within him. Why was she bothering with these questions? She was gone, dead. There was no longer a reason to be here. Mamma had duties to prepare for the coming war. She should be dealing with them and leaving him… leaving him…

“Jah,” he said instead, there. 

One side of him was thankful. Thankful for the Smoke Knight that saved his Lady from killing herself to.. Thankful for the fact his Lady still lived.

It was a bitter thankfulness.

“Den… den dere may still be a vay.”

It took a second for him to understand, but when he did his eyes snapped open.

“A vay?”

Mamma nodded, more serious than he could ever remember. “Jah… hy haff access to de draught.”

He blinked. Mamma had already pumped her with more Battledraught than a human should ever have, plus it wouldn’t do anything on someone already dead… and then as she kept his serious eyes on his surprised ones it drew on him.

“De… _Jagerdraught?_ ”

She nodded. “It vas giffen to me to protect vith the Kestle to damage to do it, and und the Baron’s mens pokink around,” she reminded him. “Zo I haff it.”

But why… how…

“But…”

“Hy don’ knows if it vill do anythink at all, but iz made from de Dyne, jah? Und the Dyne used to do all sorts uf weird miracles in de past before the Kestle killed it."

His head was spinning. He felt sick. “But… but its de _Jagerdraught._ ”

She sighed and she closed her eyes, exhausted. “Hy know… ve vould be puskink ding quite a bit—but hyu said it hyurself—De Lady vould do anythink to brink her back. Ve kould putz her on ice and hope de Lady kans saffs her later, buts vho knows how soon later vill be…Plus… ve _are_ Generals.. ve haff authority…”

His hands shook. This was wrong. The idea was wrong. To make a Jäger without the Master’s consent… to make a Jäger with the person’s consent. She gone, she couldn’t consent.

But… but…

“Effen if it vorks Hy don’ knows if it vill do vat ve expect,” Mamma continued. “Hy only haff the draught—Hy rather only giff her vat effer ve need to vake her up—no more zo it may not be de same amount… plus Hy don’ know de rituals…Und uv corwze ze vouldn’t be takink the troth…”

His hands were shaking.

“Hy vould haff to putts it into her blood as vell… dat vill be different dan drinkink it.”

He was shaking.

“De odders, dey vould be pissed. De Castle vould be pissed,” he mumbled.

Mamma nodded. “Maybes ve don’ haf to tell…” she trailed off with a shrug, looking more and more certain. “Ve deals vith dat ven ve gets to it. Hy like her. De Lady luffs her. De Lady needs her.” She paused, her gaze catching his again and making him swallow. “Und Hy tink… Hy tink _hyu_ needs her.”

Oh.

Oh…

…

“Hokay…”

She nodded. And like a switch was flipped Hel was Mamma again—no she was General Gkikia again. “Hokay, hyu start pumpink her chest—we needs de blood to pump if it’s gunna evffen haff a chance, Hy get the draught!”

She turned on a dime and headed for the door. Higgs was thankful for Mamma’s order as he found his breath still painfully thin as he approached the bed, but his hands were no longer shaking as he started to pump.

This was stupid. Was there really a chance it would do anything? Did the draught even heal—they generally only gave it to healthy to be Jäger—to increase the chance it worked. And yes, it had Dyne water in it… but Dyne water only so rarely healed… usually, it caused death…

Well, no worry about _that_ risk anyway… she was already gone.

He kept pumping even as he began to spiral again. Blood oozed up from the bandage around his fingers—he knew full well he was destroying the stitches, probably breaking bones that hadn’t been broken. What little the Battledraught had done before her death was being undone. More things to heal… more to keep her dead.

And she was dead—could her body even absorb the draught even if they got it to spread through her blood?

This was just a fools’ hope. He was a fool.

And yet, he kept pumping.

Mamma returned swiftly, an IV bag set up with the blood that they had been to slow to save her with originally. She quickly hooked it to the drip she’d already set up. And then she pulled out a bottle, setting up a third one.

“Hy mixed a little draught vith sum uff de blood,” Mamma said lowly. “Hopefully dat helps… mix it alls op.”

She opened the valve, and even as he kept up his steady pumping, he watched as it released, followed gravity down the tube, and disappeared into her arm.

She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe.

He hesitated.

“Keep goink, it vill takes time,” Mamma barked and he jumped back into the rhythm.

Again. And again. And again.

“Higgs.”

Again. And again. And again.

“Atanase…stop!” He jumped again, hands coming up and away like he’d been burned. He blinked over at her. When he hadn’t been paying attention she had stood next to him, two fingers on the pules of a wrist. He blinked at that hand—she was so pale—but slowly he looked up at Mamma. She was smiling. _Softly._

“Hyu kan stop,” she told him lowly. “It vorkes… her heart iz beatink.”

He stared at her, and then back down at the woman before him. As he watched her chest painfully filled and deflated. He looked to her face. It had eased slightly as if she was no longer in pain.

“She…”

“Jah.”

He swallowed as the world crashed down on him. Rising hope mixed with grief and guilt and betrayal into a nauseating swirl. Betrayal for his Heterodyne and for the woman before him.

“Vat… vat haff ve done?”

“Vat iz done, iz done,” was all Mamma could tell him.

Zeetha breathed.

**Author's Note:**

> Note 1: So I’m not honestly sure about the whole, give Zeetha the draught think. It was a huge this how secretive it was, and it kinda feels like they just suddenly realized Higgs would outlive Zeetha and panicked. Plus… I was hoping her powerup would be more original, either coming from her innate self (keeping up with badass normal) or through something related to Skifander. That said the sheer lack of reaction she had to it is interesting, and I’m hoping it will at least give her a chance to get something else a bit more original.
> 
> Note 2: I'm actually leaning to the comic canon that Zeetha almost dies or "basically died" at Mamma's instead of the novels "she did in fact die", just because I don't really see how the Jagerdraught would be able to be absorbed into a dead body with the body actually... alive and working, so... but I wanted to play with the hinted at scene in the novel.
> 
> Note 3: So I decided Higgs first given name is Atanase because I needed to choose one eventually, and apparently it the Romanian form of the Greek name Αθανασιος (Athanasios) meaning "immortal", from Greek α (a), a negative prefix, combined with θανατος (thanatos) meaning "death". It could totally be bogus, and who knows if it was around when Higgs was turned, but there you go. For the moment Mamma would really be the only one to use it, though the other general and maybe the castle also know it. That said he has taken Axel Higgs as his new name thanks to how attached he’s come to that life, and even then Mamma only uses it in soft moment when she’s trying to speak to the little boy she grew up with and not her general and friend.
> 
> Note 4: Mamma’s first names is Hellevi, which means “untouched in battle” but mostly I chose it because it has battle in it, as well as the fact I wanted her nickname to be Hel XD. It’s probably not culturally appropriate but, meh. They are Mechanicsburgers.


End file.
